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Banks could have made up to $875 million a month off of their
now-dead debit card fees, according to an analysis from Market
Rates Insight.

The projections are based off of each of the 175 million U.S.
adults with bank accounts paying a monthly $5 fee, the amount
Bank of America(BAC) had planned on charging its customers before
becoming the last major bank to ditch its debit card fee on
Tuesday.

Banks could have made up to $875 million a month off of their
now-dead debit card fees.Wells
Fargo(WFC) and JPMorgan Chase(JPM) were testing out $3 and
$3.50 fees, respectively, when they decided to pull their pilot
programs late last week.

But Market Rates Insight says the fees -- as well as the consumer
backlash they incurred -- could have easily been avoided if banks
had simply lowered their deposit rates by just 0.01%. This
decrease would have reduced interest expense at financial
institutions by $1.5 billion per month and netted almost twice
the amount debit card fees would have brought in.

Market Rates Insight's analysis isn't the first to indicate debit
card fees were never really necessary.

Earlier this week, Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of credit card
comparison Web site CardHub.com, pointed out that checking
account fees already recoup well more than the $28 per customer
that financial institutions will lose each year as a result of
the Durbin Amendment, the legislation most banks attributed as
the reason for instituting new charges.